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Commercial construction and the industries that feed it stimulated $9.6 billion of business in Alabama in 2010, according to a study the Alabama Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors commissioned from Keivan Deravi, an economics professor at Auburn University at Montgomery. Previous data supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis stated construction contributed $7.6 billion to the state’s gross domestic product, but it lumped together residential and commercial contractors and did not account for industry suppliers and service providers.

Deravi’s study—which only counted business generated in Alabama and paid to Alabama companies—found the economic output of commercial construction exceeded $9.3 billion (41 percent), making it the state’s largest industry. By comparison, the manufacturing industry accounts for 19 percent of the state’s output.

Additionally, the industry generated 150,000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2010 (56 percent of all jobs in the state) and had an annual payroll of $7 billion. Commercial construction activity also funneled more than $400 million of sales, income and utility taxes into state coffers.